


Isolation

by markofthemoros



Category: Original Work
Genre: Anxiety, Breaking, Darkness, Day 7, Defiant! Whumpee, Gen, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Imprisonment, Isolation, Locked In, OC, Starvation, Whump, Whumptober 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-07
Updated: 2019-10-07
Packaged: 2020-11-26 17:37:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20934104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/markofthemoros/pseuds/markofthemoros
Summary: Tiera Arla is used to getting on people's nerves. Something about his gall just rubs people wrong, but he has come to deal with that. But when someone downright takes him and locks him away to rot away in some shithole of a cell, Tiera is about to find out exactly how bad he has screwed up and then again, exactly how far he can sink with nothing but darkness and his own voice to keep him company.





	Isolation

**Author's Note:**

> Tiera is my OC from the novel I'm writing.

The darkness wasn't the problem.

Or that's what Tiera tried to tell himself. Not the  _ inability to see _ ! Pfft! It was...about the same as if he just held his eyes closed, right?

Tiera squinted, peering in front of him in an inquisitorial way. He  _ knew _ his hand was maybe ten centimeters away from his nose. He knew it, he had good hand-eye coordination. Now reduced to mere hand-assumption coordination as not even a ghost of an outline stood out in the darkness.

He gulped, releasing his breath in a quiet gasp. Looking around the nothingness, he tapped his hands around himself in hopes of finding a shape. An edge, a ledge, a pipe, a corner stone, anything. Nothing. Nothing but very soft texture. It was uneven and powdery, tramped tight. It stuck onto his skin, his heightened sense of touch making him want to rub his hands to get it off.

"Very funny, yo!" he called out. His own unnerved and doubtful voice filled up the entire space as it bounced back from something invisible.

"It's not like I wouldn't sleep like this?! Lights out, every night!"

Tiera listened keenly for a reply. But as none came, his throat tightened.

"...Hello?"

Silence remained in the wake of the reverbs of the shushed inquiry.

"Tch! ...Fine. I can keep myself entertained."

Inching directly backward, all the while feeling for anything recognizable around him, Tiera shuffled around. His pulse was rising. Expecting to grasp a glimpse of anything -Dammit, a speck of light too much to ask?!- he patted along the rough circle of the length of his arm.

Nothing.

Nothing but dirt.

Assuming that this even  _ was  _ dirt… He gulped. “Hey?!”

No answer.

Grunting, Tiera bit his lip. Then, as if to spite the darkness, he started humming a tune, timing his blind exploration with the beats of the song.

“‘ _ Welcome to the Hotel California _ ’, my ass.. _ . _ ”

“You guys have a lot of customer rep to make up for, yo!”

“Helloo-oh?”

Fucking fuck, this place honestly went on forever-?!

“Hey!!”

Where  _ was _ he?! Tiera almost lost his balance when the hand he had reached behind him suddenly met nothing where he expected the floor to come up. His shout stung his ears as it revolved around for a painstaking moment before dying down.

His heart was beating wildly, however. Hammering in his chest as a vivid remainder of him still being very much alive, Tiera’s gulp got constricted. Blood rushing in his ears, the loud, core-shaking thumps, surely all around him.

He had to force the gulp down before he dared to return to the dip right next to him. This time carefully, he ran his now caked hand on the surface, taking note of the sudden deepening. Feeling down the small slope, he let go of his breath as he again met dirt.

A hole.

Nothing but a simple hole.

What the fuck had he gotten so riled up about?!

It takes several moments to remember that at a point, he had been humming.

* * *

He wasn’t sure if finding the walls was of any comfort after all. All it did was solidify his isolation when he counted the fourth corner in his blind exploration of touch and feel.

Swallowing down, he pulled his knees to his chest. Shifting just to reassure that he still felt perpendicular walls behind both of his shoulders, Tiera gasped out openly. He clamped his mouth closed immediately, shivers running down his back as he forced himself to breathe more discreetly. Whatever this was, who the fuck ever was doing this to him, Tiera wasn’t going to give them the pleasure of witnessing him cracking up! If someone wanted to watch him sit in the dark, pfft, be his guest! Tiera didn’t care!

Hiding his discomfort was the best he could do, though.

Regardless of his ideals, Tiera couldn’t deny the stiffening of his chest when the darkness surrounding him was starting to feel like fingers, a slowly closing claw wrapping around him and closing him in.

He tried to spark out another tune. Humming loudly in the darkness, trying his best to get sucked into it, Tiera went through five, six songs. Coming up with a seventh took effort. Simply his own voice, already growing a bit breathless and waverly in the stale silence, was starting to shine through with the deceit Tiera was adamant on trying to feed himself, to make belief of the flimsy comfort any sound should offer. With the unintentional tremor of his voice, he was unnerving himself more than it had ever been of comfort. So he stopped, cut the ninth track abruptly from the middle as he went silent.

Well. If you can’t beat them, join them. If silence was the name of the game, hey, Tiera was all about competition!

* * *

He lasted roughly half an hour.

“You know, if you just came here, we could talk?!” he tried to persuade. “I mean, I’m sure we’d have something in common? Hey, you like  _ Star Wars _ ?! Everyone likes  _ Star Wars _ ! Han was always my favorite! Who’s yours?”

He pretended to listen, nodding. “Luke, huh? Well, figures. He’s cool, too. Heh. See myself more of a space pirate, though. Making do my way.”

“What’s that? Oh, you’d like to lemme outta here?! Why, thank you! That would be most nice, in fact, I’d congratulate and hug you, you know, if I saw you?!” Tiera’s voice grew harsher. “Hey, why dontcha get over here and face me, you fuck?!”

He was left panting lightly, with the last ripples of his shout dying away in the corners of his imprisonment. Grunting, Tiera clawed a fistful of dirt and tossed it out in front of him blindly. The bare part of his shin tickled with the crumbles raining down on himself. All it did was wring his insides into a tighter knot when the all-encompassing silence returned over him like a rising tide, inescapable and suffocating.

What the hell was going on?

Who was doing this and why? Tiera couldn’t fathom it. Pulse? Having another pissed fit at him and deciding to drag it out? Nah. Not his style. The bastard wasn’t exactly one for longevity and keeping on the edge. Pulse’s fury was ruthless and imminent, and if this were his doing, Tiera was eerily aware that he wouldn’t just stick to watching. Pulse would have given a sign of himself by now, and...and Tiera didn’t mind it hadn’t come to that. In comparison, sitting in darkness with nothing but his voice for company was relatively harmless - when the option could entail knives and beating bloody. Tiera shuddered at the recollection; he knew firsthand.

But that’s what’s problematic. Who else would want to drag him out here? It didn’t make sense. Whom had he managed to piss off that bad?

“Guess I’ve just gonna hafta wait.”

Surely there was a point to this. Eventually someone would come and mock his face and try to coax a reaction out of him. This was a rattling, a way to make him uneasy. Just so that someone could enjoy watching him panic.

...Right?

Someone would come for him.

Right?!

* * *

He must have dozed off. The anomaly in the phlegm was so crude Tiera was jostled. Blinking and gasping rapidly in the darkness, he tried to discern dream from reality. It was made hard by the sheer almost inconceivable nature of what he thought he  _ heard _ .

Thuds.

Tiera perked up. Straightening his back and tilting his head like a hound on a prowl, he heightened his ears to listen. Was he hearing things? No. No, those were definitely real sounds. Steps. Coming closer!

“Hey?!” His own voice like a shout in his ears, Tiera scrambled onto his knees, reaching to the side blindly in search of support when his sit-stiffened legs followed along sluggishly. “Hello?!”

The steps quieted down. It was silent again, eerily so; Tiera extended his neck almost long enough to hurt, trying to strain his hearing to catch any whisper aside from his own.

Then, with a blood-curdling scrape, a hatch was yanked open. Tiera moaned out at the sudden onslaught of the raw grind of metal and instinctively clamped his hands over his ears. Only as a shadow shifted beyond the print paper sized opening in the darkness did he register the light shining inside. It illuminated the brown and grey flooring, the rusting edges of the door to light.

Someone bent down. A hand tossed a water bottle and a brown and gleaming pack inside. Almost immediately after, the light faded as the hatch was latched closed.

Tiera bolted.

“Hey!! Hey, wait! What’s going on?!” He stumbled a little, his footing precarious in the fresh darkness. He almost tripped onto the water bottle and slammed himself against what he presumed to be the door. He slammed his palm onto it, wincing involuntarily at the pitch.

“Hey?! I know you’re in there! Don’t ya fucking ignore me!”

Tiera’s rant went unheeded when the steps, after a moment -of listening, he realized with a cold terror balling up in his gut- began to stray away.

“Wait! No, just hold on a goddamn minute there! What do you want with me?!”

His voice broke as the steps walked out of earshot. “N-no...wait, come, come back...” The last of his rant fading, death-like stillness spread around him again. Seeping up from the ground, it crept up his spine, going for the heart. His own gasp, moist and uncontrolled, danced in the closed space like a haunting ghost. A lump pressed his windpipe painfully; he did his best to swallow past it, but the strangling sensation wouldn’t let go of him.

With a soft huff, he let his shoulders sag as he flopped his forehead against the metal. His fingers scratched the door half-heartedly as they cleched and unfisted, repeated, drawing a slow pattern of noise. And while not exactly comforting, any noise whatsoever was better than this incessant, suffocating stillness, and gulping, Tiera let himself sink back down. There was no sound from the other side anymore, not a flicker of light shining through the tiniest crack.

Absent-mindedly, his other hand felt around for where he remembered the light having been. And yes! There, clearly noticeable, were the lines of a hatch. At the ground level so that he had missed them when he had first felt his way around, but now that he tapped along the area, he could clearly make out the edges.

“Ghh!” He attacked he hatch. Clawing at whatever he could get a grab of, Tiera yanked at the seams. “C’mon…!” His nails slipped; he fumbled to grab on again. He hissed out sharply when something got caught and a sharp pain, followed by throbbing, sliced at his left hand. But he still kept scratching and tearing blindly. More pain seeped into his fingers, slicing then stagnant.  _ Trickling _ .

“C’mon! ...Lemme outta here, you fucks!”

His hand flared up, jolts of pain making him wince. But he kept tearing, clawing at the layer of dirt as well. His nails scraped against something hard and he felt the raking when keratin fought a losing battle against stone. Frustration erupted in a roar that stung his ears, Tiera’s hand fisting and slamming against the door. He hit it again a few more times, but each bang came weaker than the previous, his fight draining from him. 

His stomach loudly reminded him of itself in the face of receiving fillment, and Tiera smacked his tongue. The irrefutable dryness in his mouth was making him cough. He had no idea how long it’s been since he last ate. He usually ate the bare minimum anyway; the craving was becoming hard to ignore.

With a broken sigh, Tiera let his hand slide to a comfortable rest against the door and closed his eyes. At least he still had the refuge of his chosen darkness, slim comfort as that was. Breathing out a half-sob, he heavily turned around and pulled his knees up. Slumping forward, he let his head drop. 

His growling stomach was winning over his reluctance to obey. The parched sensation with the gnawing hunger demanded him for sustenance, and after a while of hesitation, Tiera eventually reached around. He felt like a traitor when his hand closed around the water bottle. None of this was his choice! Someone was keeping him here, against his will, as their prisoner. Survival was instinctive more than it ever was a matter of choice, and Tiera didn’t want to die. Not here, not like this. Not rotting away in some shithole cell. If there was a chance for survival, he’d take it.

They wanted him alive, he reminded himself of that. Why else would they feed him? Why make sure that he had air? Because he did, now that he thought about it. The space was ample, but certainly not vast, and with the time he had been here already, Tiera was certain he would have used up a good amount of oxygen by now if there wasn’t any sort of ventilation? The why still didn’t make sense to him - but he would beat the answers out of someone once he got out of here!

And getting out of here meant making it through this. Making it through this meant eating. So he did. Hissing at the jolts of pain in his torn hands, Tiera wrung the bottle open with his teeth. The water was like angel tears in his barren mouth and he drank, having to still himself after the fourth gulp. He didn’t know how long he had been here. If he had slept, it could be days. He needed to be careful not to overdo it if he was dehydrated as it was. Slow and steady, that would do it. Wiping his mouth, Tiera suckled on his hand to salvage the last droplets. With a deep huff, he closed the bottle and focused to steady his breathing.

* * *

The thuds. Tiera’s back shot straight up. His entire body tensing, he listened for the approaching steps.

Where were they? He had heard it, surely!

“Hey?”

His eyes locked to where he thought the door would be, he waited. Waited for ten seconds for the hatch to open. Twenty. Nothing. Holding his breath, he strained his hearing. He  _ had  _ heard the steps, just now!

The hatch remained untouched.

It took a while for him to realize that the soft clicking he was now following with his unseen eyes came from his own teeth.

“Ya’ve gotta be fucking kidding me…!” he muttered through his teeth.

In the darkness, he could swear that arcs of light -yellows and light greens, a spiraling blue one- danced in the air, just out of his arm’s reach. His breath catching, he reached for them anyway, expecting to see his hand appear in the dim glow at any second.

He lurched forward a little as he over-extended. The lights moved in his vision, never once coming any closer, always wafting teasingly out of his reach. Grunting, he tried again, this time to snatch a hold of a beam. His tendons made a clearly audible ‘snickt’ when his fist clenched around nothing.

Gasping, Tiera allowed himself to savor the sting as his nails sunk into his palm. The beams spread into the air over and over again, following him when he tucked his head into his shoulder and squeezed his eyes shut with a tormented hiss. Now dancing behind his eyelids, they haunted him even in the safety of his chosen darkness.

“Ghh…”

“Get away from me…!”

Backing away a few paces, Tiera let out a shout when his shoulder collided with the metal. Trembling fingers fumbling for the edges, he dug his nails into the seams frantically, seeking the comfort of something solid in the darkness. Banging the back of his head against it, he yanked at it wherever he could reach. The hatch didn’t budge, rust-roughened edge scraping his fingers.

His frustration, his fear, his rage, all of it tore out in a long roar. His head thrown back, Tiera started slamming it against the metal. Ignoring the sting, the increasing throbbing in the back of his skull, he treasured every dull bang. Anything,  _ anything  _ rather than the silence-! It was incessant, he was suffocating!

“Lemme out of here!!”

“Hey!!”

“Anyone fucking listening?!”

“I know you’re in there!”

A sudden pain like his skull was splitting had him slumping forward. Reaching for the flaring sting with shaking hands, Tiera moaned out, softly followed by a dry sob. Pressing his chin to his chest, he tried to pant through it. “Ghh!” Tugging at his hair, he relished in the even stinging sensation prickling across his scalp. Even, comforting. Fisting his hands in his hair, Tiera let his head fall forward, shivering at the contact when his forehead finally met his knee, in a different place than he had expected.

* * *

The earthy smell of moist dirt, stale air and asphyxiation hung above him like a lead haze.

Tiera flinched at any little rustle. Drawing his legs closer to his chest, he pressed his forehead against the knee. His choked-up sob clung to the softly creeping corners of his imprisonment. 

He shivered as something brushed the back of his neck.

“No…” came out under a wet exhale. “Se-stay ba-ack…”

_ ...era… _

‘She’s not there. She’s not there, she’s dead, she’s not, she’s  _ not _ …!’

_ ….iera… _

“Stop it…”

_ Tierah? _

“....Tal?” he peered out into the darkness, his eyes moving about, hopeful, searching. The yellow ribbon began to twist itself around its green counterpart; Tiera ignored those. He was expecting something more important. Hardly even breathing, he waited. He hoped, he despaired.

The distant thuds wrapping themselves around his agonized mind had him press his face deeper between his knees. “No…nonononono...”

Tiera’s feeble hope was consuming him. As the haunting steps surrounded him in the darkness like a pack of hyenas, he broke into crying soundlessly, trying to blend into the darkness in a vain hope to hide from it all.

He let out a yelp when the hatch was pulled open harshly. “Eah?!”

The water bottle hadn’t hit the ground when Tiera already did.

Scrambling toward the unbearably bright light, Tiera slammed himself against the door. “Hey?! Hey, help me!! Please, help me!” Fumbling with his muscle control, Tiera scrambled for the outside . His fingers brushed leather, a lump, and without thinking, he grabbed a hold.

“Ge’me outta ‘ere! Please, you hafta help me!”

The shadow stood frozen where it was outside. Then, his hand was kicked off.

Tiera’s scream drowned out the disgusting crunch when blinding pain in his outreached hand made his vision wash white behind his squeezed eyelids. On instinct, Tiera tried to yank his hand away from the pain, but something was jarring it, and pulling against the cracked bones sent another flare of agony up his arm. When the weight eventually, mercifully lifted, Tiera didn’t think before he cradled his injured hand into his chest, clutching his wrist with the other one. 

The bottle and the packed piece of bread were tossed inside unceremoniously before, with a doomsday groan of rusted joints, the hatch was slammed shut, sealing him back into darkness.

His gasp caught in his throat. Throwing himself back against the door, Tiera pressed his forehead onto the cool metal.

“N-no!! No, wait! Wait!!”

“Don’leave me here! Please! Please, I’m begging you!”

His heart dropped when the telltale thuds retreated farther and farther. A cry burned his throat.

“Hey!! Hey?!”

His screamed protests followed after the steps long after they had already faded. Followed until Tiera’s voice cracked from dehydration. Croaking painfully, he stilled to breathe heavily against the door.

“Please, don’t…” was a mere whisper; he couldn’t fathom more.

His tears had ran long before recognition drifted into his exhausted mind. Sniffling softly, he took a few more shaky breaths before curling up into a ball on the floor. Gathering his injured hand to his chest, Tiera cried quietly in the thickening silence.


End file.
